Technical impact
The vulnerability stems, mitigated by removing the vulnerable code path. An attacker can trigger it by mounting a maliciously crafted disk image, leading to unexpected system termination or corruption of kernel memory. The primary impact is loss of system availability due to crashes and potential instability of kernel memory.
Affected Systems
Apple macOS, specifically the Golden Gate release. The vulnerability was addressed in macOS Golden Gate 27; older revisions of the operating system remain affected.
Risk and Exploitability
The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 6.5, indicating a medium severity assessment. The EPSS score is below 1%, suggesting a low probability of exploitation in the general population. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. Exploitation would require an attacker to supply a malicious disk image that the operating system mounts, which is inferred from the description and represents a local or remote abuse depending on how the image is introduced to the system.
